Friday, 4 June 2010

Some Black-Clad Men

I was looking in a book on black clothing today, and instead of finding what I wanted I found this list in the index. (I can't be bothered to type up all the page numbers, but I'm sure you can imagine them).

The abecedarian nature of the index has, of course, provided alliteration, but by chance it has produced perfect juxtapositions and connections: Christ, Clergymen, the Condemned. Elsewhere in the index I noticed marriage, melancholy, the middle class. It reminded me of this bit from Waiting for Godot.
I may stop reading books and confine myself to indices.

I saw Waiting for Godot on Thursday evening... Roger Rees' slumping, almost cowering in defeat as McKellen delivers the final 'Crritic!' - lovely stuff. It was the first time I've seen it and the suspense and emotion arising out of nothing happening, twice, was amazing. Musical language, indeed.

My favourite book of this and possibly any other Christmas is Mark Forsyth's A Short History of Drunkenness - The Spectator

Sparkling, erudite and laugh out loud funny. Mark Forsyth is the kind of guide that drunks, teetotallers and light drinkers dream of to explain the ins and outs of alcohol use and abuse since the beginning of time. One of my books of the year. Immensely enjoyable. Professor Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads

A Short History of Drunkenness is this year's Châteauneuf-du-Pape of Christmas books, no less. Bloody entertaining. - Emlyn Rees

Sometimes you see a book title that simply gladdens the heart. Everyone I showed this book to either smiled broadly or laughed out loud . . . This is a book of some brilliance - Daily Mail

With a great eye for a story and a counterintuitive argument, Mark Forsyth has enormous fun breezing through 10,000 years of alcoholic history in a little more than 250 pages. - The Guardian

Well researched and recounted with excellent humour, Forsyth's alcohol-ridden tale is sure to reduce anyone to a stupor of amazement. - Daily Express

This entertaining study of drunkenness makes for a racy sprint through human history - history being, as Mark Forsyth wittily puts it "the result of farmers working too hard". - The Sunday Times

This charming book proved so engrossing that while reading it I accidentally drank two bottles of wine without realising. - Rob Temple, author of Very British Problems